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The Cambridge Conference highlighted the members concern about communications and I was thrilled to be elected your NI Vice-President, Gisborne were prompt to take up my offer "Have car, will travel" and I went up to a field day the first Saturday after Cambridge. I will probably never have a warmer welcome to any branch."We want some publicity, Diana." I was happy to oblige. Two newspapers carried my colour picture and interviews and I also visited Eastwoodhill. I loved all the colour, inspected the possum bait before trying to identify all the oaks we have grown from acorns collected on our Gisborne conference visit four years ago. I want to thank all who hosted me, at their homes, at their meetings, their field days , the inventive potluck meals, chestnuts have never tasted so good. You sent emails home to Walter that Yes, I had been seen and was on my way to Kerikeri, to Kaitaia, to Whangarei, to Franklin, to Tokoroa, Rotorua, Te Aroha, Taupo and Waihi. I drove the Coromandel to Whitianga to thank Bob Evans for our pioneering website. I'm sorry we were not computer literate enough to use this early opportunity properly. In just a few short years the personal computers and skills have proliferated to the great assistance of our management and regional meetings. I ate fish at Tauranga, beef at Tikokino and met the schools around Napier. Wairarapa invited me, I put my foot in it, when I could not recognise apricot trees in Martinborough. Not all areas grow the long whips that we prune off at Wanganui. "A dry climate produces more fruit" was the reply' I thought I knew treecrops but you had so much to show me where I was out of depth. I visited Wainuiomata, got shown out of the Beehive, reported faithfully to Ray at Otaki and drowned the bathroom when I turned on the spa. I collected cuttings in Bulls entertained Taranaki treecroppers and farm foresters from Eltham and Hawera, Stratford and Urenui. I picked up hazels in Taumarunui, but never saw a truffle, picked peacherines in Mangaweka, dined elegantly in Palmerston North, then home to Wanganui. I have visited twenty eight properties and met over three hundred members and phoned a dozen in every branch to update the growing register, Who is growing what? And how many? And what else? Will you be planting more? What difficulties are you having? I gave each of your chairmen the entire list of members past and present so that you could contact older properties and see the bearing trees at Field days. We used to have a good register of treecroppers trees when Tom Dinning was around. I just wanted to gather together the best things that we used to do. Wait till you send your sub next and the branches will be better informed of what you all want to know how to grow. I'd always wanted to know about the branches, they are all different, did you know that? Some are more formal than others, some of you hang loose. I passed on all your best tips to the next and the next branch. You told me all the pitfalls of running a national conference, and how to avoid them. I told you all about the Wanganui National conference organized by Central Districts. One unpleasant thing I brought back from the north was that dangerous new pest from Tasmania the Guava Fruit moth. Our original member in Kerikeri who brought it to my attention in macadamias and feijoas has all her plums affected, citrus trees, bananas and casimiroas.What a wealth of knowledge we can call on. Our Auckland members set out to identify and try to fight the spread of this gobbling insect. Dr Gordon Lees has coordinated the search monitoring of the spread and pulling together the Feijoa growers, the citrus, and the macadamia growers to make them aware of the danger to their livelihood. Most at risk are the organic growers, but we record the failure of our government agencies to act promptly and responsibly. Consider that the thirty million dollar spray program over the Waitakare ranges to attack the painted apple moth could have been prevented by early ground spray over a single town. Fatal delays in action of this and other pests occur because of the User Pays policy. All home gardeners are severely at risk. I have carried our concerns to Members of Parliament. I delivered them personally early on the morning the West coasters bailed up Sandra Lee in a demonstration outside the Beehive. I wish our quarantine measures were as quick to act as the security patrol. The failure to respond promptly with government funding to newly arriving pests and diseases should give us all the deepest concern. We certainly have been communicating well. Your newsletters this year have been fizzing with bright articles and worthwhile activities. I wanted to give a prize for different categories that I believe some of you have done exceptionally well. Northern Region's conference report for example, Waikato's community diary so that members with associated Small Farmer activities and Farm Forester connections could fit it all together. It would make the competition more equal. This year we have just one prize. Central Districts has worked in with Forest and Bird members and the Wellington Horowhenua branch to double our years programme. It has been a most stimulating year. It is a big challenge to run a branch, but many of you have a generous concern for a neighbouring branch. Thames Coromandel is well served by Waikato newsletters and Bay or Plenty too tries to take a field day close. CD is aware of Taranaki in recession, Wairarapa and Wellington have close connections, Northland is now part of already large Auckland branch, and the liaison been Franklin and Auckland branches is great for sharing field days, If all this working together had been going on a few years ago we would never have had had branches going off into recession, Is it the email? What a difference it has made in liaising all over the country. Is it the web page? The proliferation of personal computers has certainly been a good thing for Treecroppers. Gail Newcomb as Technical Editor is in touch with you all. Computers aren't all about central city living. It brings the world web right to where you are, up a rural side road, off a secondary highway in a minor province. Les Gruebner of Bay of Plenty is our Webmaster; you can be in touch with Treecroppers everywhere. Newsletter editors are doing a fantastic job. You get a newsletter from Otago with such a delightful and pertinent selection of tree information and snippets that one realises the value of a good editor and his good books, thank you Jim Dunckley. I have only to look at the newsletters and see the articles reprinted from other branches to see how to select the best newsletter of all. You are all doing a super job. I am glad to see Gisborne has a newsletter up again, not that you are ever out of touch because your newspapers give you such good coverage. Other branches please note, Gisborne made their local reporter a full member of NZ Tree Crops Not all members have PC's. Some rural telephone lines won't carry the signals. The Magazine remains our most important and regular link with three quarters of our members who have yet to climb into their cars and follow the maps in the newsletter to drive out of town and up a country road to meet a group of strangers who are their local branch. For them and all of us, our magazine, our newsletters and the services of our Publications officer, Judy Bool, are the face of Treecropping and we are very well served. We haven't had reports in from the action groups. We need to be in touch as hobby growers move into industry groups. Chestnut marketing, Hazel nuts, cracking Walnuts. What a brilliant job Cambridge conference did in this respect with the history of marketing organic kiwifruit, nashi pears and persimmons. We need to be in touch with associations with similar aims. It is ten years since the forestry accord meetings. I sympathise with all those who wish we had done better. Contact me, please. You obviously have much knowledge to share. We are all members of an association, we all have skills and knowledge to bring together. I hope I accomplished all that Auckland asked me to do in seeing the wonderfully varied treecrops of the their region. Their members raised the important issue of how to import seed of new crops into NZ and the incongruity of importing from a third world country like Pakistan and yet not being able to bring in seed from America. This is something we need to make submissions about at National level to the Biosecurity people. If we had had restrictions like this a few years ago we'd never have had a kiwifruit industry, nashi pears or persimmons and Douglas Cook could never have planted Eastwood Hill. I now receive on your behalf, regular biosecuity reports from Hort Research I note Franklin's concern about expenses. I think Management Committee this year has done an outstanding job. I wish to record my thanks for wonderful secretarial support from Mary Banks, I'm sure all the branches appreciate her too .The system whereby all the newsletters reach all the branches was an old idea that she has reinstated, and so is the massive cost reductions in MC telephone conferencing. Our President, Ray Hollis, is a statesman and a gentleman. I take my hat off to the way he has fielded some bouncers, some snide spins and a bit of underarm bowling last year. Previously he sorted out the magazine failure. This year he has also been the treasurer, separated the financial component and the membership component. He and Mary have carried a double load in office, you can imagine how I view any criticism in the remits of the job we have done on the national executive. I hope to support him again as your North Island Vice-President. Thank you all for a wonderful year. I've had my head down and my wings trimmed since to get our property ready for the national conference field days. I hope you all network like mad at Wanganui with the hardworking Central Districts Committee. Diana Loader
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